Thursday, March 28, 2013

To be honest Eli don't often agree with KT but K said something profound down below

No, and I think you'll agree with me here: it's a science and we ought to hold it to exactly the same standards as any other.

You really don't 'get' science.

There
are no standards and there are no rules, except possibly for the
journals, and the journal publications do not define science - they just
report some of it. In fact, there is no real definition of science,
there are just devices that can be fabricated repeatably that do actual
work, and the work itself, which reveal insights to you, if it happens
to be communicated to you by way of print or any other media, or in the
form of product devices, which you can then use to do your own
'science'. It's a cumulative self correcting collective effort with
parts that rise and fall according to the whims and funding of the
investigators. You should try it sometime, you might like it. You can
even incorporate some of its methods into your daily life.

125 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I should have added that there are rules and standards for some of the people and institutions that fund science. But funding is also subject to the whims and follies of the funders as well, particularly nowadays where billionaires are picking up a lot of the slack.

Crowd sourcing and crowd funding is yet another new phenomenon in the field of science to consider.

There are two kind of radiations, the informative one, and the heavy artillery , radiation which carries calories.

The information radiation is used in

infrared camera’s, IR remote thermometers,pyrgeometers and indeed two plates telling each other which one is the warmest.

It is two way traffic.

In case of the two plates the information radiation is a traffic light, and enables nature to obey the second law andto send the second heavy artillery with calories from the warmer plate to the colder one!

Therefore in the paper I insist that SB is always written for a pair, with two temperatures. In fact also emission from temperature T to temperature zero K is a pair, q=sigma*(T^4-zerok^4) which is usually written in abreviated form since zeroK^4=0!.

If this matter interests you, go to the blogs of Johnson, where you can read historical phrases by Planckton and by Einstein that indeed they were not happy with the quanta!

Who are real scientists perhaps those who would put their name to these truths:

WHAT WE BELIEVE

1.We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.

2.We believe ...

WHAT WE DENY

1.We deny that Earth and its ecosystems are the fragile and unstable products of chance, and particularly that Earth’s climate system is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of minuscule changes in atmospheric chemistry. Recent warming was neither abnormally large nor abnormally rapid. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming.

... 4.We deny that such policies, which amount to a regressive tax, comply with the Biblical requirement of protecting the poor from harm and oppression.

So Richard Courtney , who successively tried to morph an Open University mail order materials science course from a Diploma to Dp. Phil. to D.Plhil. Baliol is become a Reverend on the sterngth of his ay preaching to , wait for it, unemployed coal miners .

Sorry guys. You can rage against methodological prescriptionism til the cows come home, but there will never be an interpretation of the scientific method elastic enough to forgive a sentence like this:

"Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"

And there's the problem for the Team: average punters may be unable to say precisely what science is, but they know what it's not. No imaginable context could make Phil Jones' email to Warwick Hughes compatible with the profession of science.

Somewhere, contrarians got the idea that science is about trying to poke holes in things.

No.

Science is about trying to explain things. Sometimes, the new explanation requires rejecting the old one, and, because scientists are human, if the old explanation was championed by a competitor, there can be some pleasure in that... but the key is the new explanation, not the hole-poking.

So, yes, you provide data to people who will use it to improve, refine, etc., not to people who are only trying to nitpick you to death. (though even in the case of good scientific trying to figure out how the universe works, scientists like to be the first ones to an explanation, and so aren't always the best at sharing anyway)

This is part of why the contrarian obsession about the details of a 1998 paper is not science is such a good tell that they aren't real scientists.

Popper wrote a book called **Conjectures and Refutations**. As the title suggests, science is not only about "poking holes", but about putting hypothesis on the table.

Trying to poke holes ain't enough to do science, even for a falsificationist.

Speaking of which, I'm sure you'll enjoy this collection:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/PopperForBloggers

***

Glad to see how you are coatracking (an auditing idiom, so I guess you know that one) Jones and the Team in the discussion. We'll see how much mileage you'll get with this claptrap. For memory's sake, here would be a more general form:

[Eli]: Well, X.

[Bunnies]: Yeah, this is a bummer. But how do you think that people –

[Brad]: Hey guys, you talking Y?

[Bunnies]: Come on, Brad. Don’t do this again.

[Brad]: I just thought maybe you were having the old Y discussion.

[Eli]: Dude, for the last time: we’ll tell you if we ever have a conversation about Doritos.

has Mullis said anything remotely as ignorant and stupid as Phil Jones on the subject of how science is done?

Sure has.

And much dumber, actually.

"Mullis claims climate change and the HIV/AIDS connection are due to a conspiracy of environmentalists, government agencies and scientists attempting to preserve their careers and earn money, rather than scientific evidence." -- from Wikipedia

In other words, he has actually made sweeping claims about how science is done not by one scientist, but by a large sector of the scientific community (in two different disciplines)

And Mullis also believes in astrology, which is tantamount to rejecting the scientific method outright.

Of course, the Great Secret that "Brad" doesn't want anyone to know - and I pass this on in strictest-never-to-be-told-to-anyone-lest your lips-be-ripped-from-your-face - is that Jones is/was under no obligation whatsoever, moral or otherwise, to share data with a lazy, incompetent, rent-seeking cretinous 'auditor' who would have to wait until the work was published. Just like everybody else.

But "Brad" here - presumably having found minus zilch in the CG3 release is perfectly content to warm over CG1 because, well, just because... because ... Climategate!!! OK Already??

More profound--it is about predicting things. Occams razor says that we should keep the theory as simple as possible. The work of Akaike says that the explanatory power of a theory must increase exponentially in proportion to its complexity (# parameters) or we sacrifice predictive power.

Brad, about that "I won't give you the data..." Do you know the context? I think not or you wouldn't be trumpeting it everywhere.

Mr. Hughs could have gotten all the publicly available data and made his own calculations. He has chosen not to do this. So frankly that quote is nothing but more BS. It adds nothing to the sum of human knowlege except that now we all know for sure certain people are more interested in stirring crap than they are interested in figuring out what it going on around them.

Brad Keyes said... but there will never be an interpretation of the scientific method elastic enough to forgive a sentence like this:

"Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?

Not even if an objectionable and contemptible person with a habit of making stuff up wanted your data to make more stuff up, with the likelihood they were dealing in bad faith, and had an agenda with the aim of discrediting you regardless of the quality of your work?

How would you respond Brad if you we're in that situation. Yes sir no sir? Or go stuff yourself?

Guthrie, I may not speak for Eli, but I am especially fond of purple and good ol' orange.

I may be useful to point out that Hughes was (is?) an all purpose denialist. He denied everything from traffic accident data to climate change. Truly a man for all seasons. I can understand why Jones replied to him as he did.

"[Hughes] denied everything from traffic accident data to climate change. Truly a man for all seasons."

I wasn't aware of that. I always thought it was his opponents who were insisting the Earth's climate had somehow remained virtually constant over 900 years (from the apogee of Teotihuacan civilization to the invention of cinema) in the face of all evidence that it had changed dramatically. Have I got it backwards, or have you?

"Not even if an objectionable and contemptible person with a habit of making stuff up wanted your data to make more stuff up,"

How do I, or Phil Jones, or any other mammal know Warwick Hughes' intention is to "make stuff up"?

Moreover, why on earth would opening up my data make it easier for an unscrupulous opponent to distort and mischaracterise it? Quite the reverse. The more people see it, the stronger my position should any controversy be manufactured about it.

" with the likelihood they were dealing in bad faith, and had an agenda with the aim of discrediting you regardless of the quality of your work?"

Again, what am I in this hypothetical scenario: a climate scientist or a mind-reader? Or someone equally inept at both (à la Stephan Lewandowsky)?

"How would you respond Brad if you we're (sic) in that situation. Yes sir no sir? Or go stuff yourself?"

I'd give him the data. Which would achieve several things:

1. most importantly, compliance with the scientific method—no version, interpretation or translation of which includes any exemption for situations in which I don't particularly like the other person

2. ending whatever rumors may be circulating about it

3. silencing and seducing my critics by virtue of the sheer quality, hygiene and cogency of my data

"There’s a well-organized campaign, primarily in the United States but also in other countries, including Canada and Australia, of bloggers, of people in the media, of basically professional climate deniers whose main goal is to abuse, to harass and to threaten anybody who stands up and says climate change is real – especially anybody who’s trying to take that message to audiences that are more traditionally skeptical of this issue."

Brad dodges and dodges. I like the long lists he makes up listing all the points he wants others to answer while remaining silent on questions asked of him.

So Brad, you really don't believe any science unless you personally go read the original journal articles and evaluate the evidence yourself? Do you know how incredibly dumb that sounds?

As far as Hughes goes, remember this part of the email:" We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. There is IPR to consider."

Hughes could have gone out and got all the weather data himself. This is what someone would do if they want to do an independent replication of the CRU product. Note IPR = Intellectual Property Rights. Phil J is saying he won't send the data that CRU has modified with their corrections. If Hughes really wants that data, why, he is free to go to the journal articles and evaluate the evidence himself. The raw data is out there, he has no claim on the processed data.

This is not strange in science. In fact in many other areas (DNA, particle physics) release of the *raw* data is restricted for some period of time. This is so the people who actually worked on generating the raw data have time to benefit from their work. But I'm sure if I look I'll see you on other blogs railing against the Higgs boson people, right?

Here's the basic fact that auditors never understand -- I think because they (like you) are not scientists.

You don't take the other guys work and try to pick holes in his math. You take the raw data, or you build your own experiment, and you try to analyze the data yourself to come to your own conclusion.

Thanks, I guess, for that link to Graham Redfearn's laughable apologetics for the blood libel against Antipodean skeptics.

Just between us, I'm sitting in a secret call centre as we speak. For the rest of my 14-hour shift I'll be emailing and ringing as many climate scientists as I can with abusive and imaginative menaces. (I get a Christmas bonus for every Department of Climate Change at a major university that has to relocate to more secure facilities because of me!)

LOL.

Has anyone else noticed the way climate believalism and conspiracist ideation seem to go hand in hand?

'Readfearn's articles are invariably well researched which is why Keyes, unable to rebut has had to resort to mocking.’

LOL! I don't have to mock Redfearn, I enjoy it. His own concluding paragraph is more than self-parodying enough to do my rebuttal for me:

’Whether or not any of these incidents constitute a “death threat” is, to me at least, beside the point.’

Beside the point! Bear in mind, dear readers: Redfearn is running interference for the following urban myth, which had been bruited around by libellous liars for almost a year, doing incalculable damage to the prospects of a civilized debate in Australia:

’Australia’s leading climate change scientists are being targeted by a vicious, unrelenting email campaign that has resulted in police investigations of death threats.’

When the top 12 instances of this apocryphal hate mail were forcibly divulged (despite everything the pseudo-victims could do to keep the public from seeing them), the only one that even came close to intimating fatal violence, in the opinion of Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim, was an email written by Will Steffen, the pseudo-victims' leader, himself!

I shit you not, gentle readers. Bear all that in mind when the absurd Graham Redfearn claims to have undebunked (or rebunked) this bigoted slur on Australia's skeptic community. To repeat, MikeH's favorite hacktivist wrote this in his incredible closing paragraph:

'Whether or not any of these incidents constitute a “death threat” is, to me at least, beside the point.'

(Oh, and don't forget to read the choice comments that follow Redfearn's miserable apologia, including some remarks from victims of the original hate speech.)

If a "researcher" who considers it beside the point whether the entire premise of his own article is bullshit or not impresses you, MikeH, well… that might begin to explain your low, low standards in climate science!

Draw a deep breath and calm down. How could any reasonable person interpret "Your children and family will know because we know where you live. Expect us at your door to say hello" as threatening in any way?

And who could possibly be intimidated by "We have a right to bear arms and these perverted assholes will be wasted. We will have plans for you as well. If you bring your family all the merrier." That's simply a generous invitation to visit the United States.

Here's a person whose boundless love and affection for scientific progress is expressed by typing all capitals: "I AM CLOSE TO EXPLODING AND KILLING ONE OF THE BASTARDS ON SIGHT...AND I HAVE WORKED MIRACLES."

Now do you see? It's all just a misunderstanding; let the this polite request settle your agitation: "You fucken derelict and fraud; may I personally kick the shit out of you?"

Wow, Bwadwey is in denial even about the threats climate scientists receive! Dude, there are pictures of denialists holding up nooses during climate presentations. Of do you contend the hecklers were merely doing macrame badly?

A number of the emails sent to Phil Jones were abhorrent, and presumably criminal. The fact that Jones expressed pleasure in the news that John Daly had died at home of his first heart attack, in front of his wife, at the young age of 61 was no excuse for anyone to threaten Jones. Two wrongs, and all. That way madness lies.

Nevertheless, Phil Jones is not one of 'Australia’s leading climate change scientists.'

He works in Britain.

Americans may be surprised to learn that the UK is not Australia. I swear to God! There really is a difference between the UK and Australia.

'Australia’s leading climate change scientists' have never been subjected to a campaign of threatening emails.

That was a lie.

Climate believalists may be surprised to learn that a lie is not a fact. I swear to God! There really is a difference between lies and facts.

Call me a pedant, but I think these little distinctions matter. Don't you?

They don't matter to the average moron with an email address to send their vile spite to in their efforts to prevent the global takeover by the UN dreamt up by the denial think-tankers, so why do you make such an irrelevant distinction? Apart of course from your usual hair-splitting wriggling act when cornered by facts.

Shortly after ANU staff were moved, there was an incident at an ANU public engagement event where a climate sceptic who had been invited to attend had become frustrated. During an exchange, the individual had showed what he claimed was a gun licence to people sitting at the table, before claiming he was a “good shot”. The individual is understood to have left voluntarily.

(end quotes)

So, what do you call /that/, Keyes? Friendly banter? A appropriate scientific discussion?

It was a completely innocuous conversation over a dinner (not a scientific symposium, in case that helps).

This is now common knowledge. (I can only assume you're not Australian.)

The embellishment you quote comes courtesy of Redfearn, who wasn't even party to the conversation in question.

Scroll down from Redfearn's "research" and you'll find the first-hand narrative of The Individual himself. As far as I know this account has not been disputed by anyone since.

I quote The Individual, John Coochey:____________________________

I feel I can now throw some light on the matter. The document viewed as most “threatening” referred to an alleged Deliberation at the ANU about climate change in the Canberra region at which one person “made a death threat” (sic) by showing his gun licence and boasting about his skill as a sniper.. Only two people dropped out of the conference[. O]nly one of those who did so attended the even[ing] meal. Me. I am certainly the one who is alleged to show someone their gun licence. That is not true[;] while at the evening meal (of poor quality) comments moved to eating game meat and I was approached by the Commissioner for the Environment ACT, Dr Maxine Cooper who recognized me as someone involved in the kangaroo culling program in the ACT. She politely asked if she could sit at the vacant seat next to me and asked if I had [passed] the recent licence test – not easy. I replied yes and showed her my current licence. I also impressed on any one interested the high standard of marksmanship necessary to allay any cruelty concerns. I might add that earlier in the day I had challenged two speakers to comment on a letter in the Canberra Times that claimed that temperatures had not increased in the Canberra area for decades. They were unable to do so, having not apparently checked the record despite the the “Deliberation” (conference) supposed to be about rising temperatures in the Canberra region. As all daytime conversations were recorded (we all signed waivers to allow this) this can easily be checked._________________________

To reiterate, Zibethicus:

The email that fictionalised this banal exchange into something alarming was written by Will Steffen, an alarmist. :-)

The email that fictionalised this banal exchange into something alarming was written by Will Steffen, an alarmist. :-)"

Whether once accepts this version of events or not, death threats are anything but unheard-of to Australian climate scientists.

Contrary to your claims that "'Australia’s leading climate change scientists' have never been subjected to a campaign of threatening emails", let me just point you to the ABC's own response to this incident on Media Watch:

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3507732.htm

(snip)

A warning: there's bad language coming. The Australian could have checked the hard copy of the Canberra Times's original article in June last year.

"You will be chased down the street with burning stakes and hung from your f*** neck, until you are dead, dead, dead!

Die you lying bastard!

F*** off you lying communist c---!!

Eat S*** and Die!!!

— The Canberra Times, 4th June, 2011"

Or even better, The Oz could have actually gone to climate scientists around the country and asked for examples of threatening and abusive emails.

That's what we did. We got these from just two scientists, one in Melbourne, one in Brisbane, received in that same six month period. They're on our website, and they are not pretty reading and yes they were reported to police.

(end quotes)

And if you look at those quotes, you'll find - inside a deluge of similar filth - the phrase "Die you lying bastard!@"

Now, I suppose you'll tell us that /that's/ not a death threat, eh?

No, no - just another "banal exchange", I suppose...

*

When is a death threat not a death threat?

When it's being made by a climate change denier, of course.

And, yes, as it happens, I /am/ an Australian. Perhaps that's why I find you particularly unconvincing...

There is no other version of events from anyone who was actually there. Nobody has challenged John Coochey's account since he gave it, despite the number of witnesses. Commissioner Steffen was speaking bollocks, and all of Canberra knows it. (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as to your city of residence.)

"There is no other version of events from anyone who was actually there. Nobody has challenged John Coochey's account since he gave it, despite the number of witnesses. Commissioner Steffen was speaking bollocks, and all of Canberra knows it. (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as to your city of residence.)"

And just look at the license it gives /you/ to go on "speaking bollocks" - desperately clinging to the Coochey story to try to go on 'ignoring' all the /other/ evidence of death threats, which presumably you are 'ignoring' because you can't find any way to properly dispute it right now.

Whether those offensive and disturbing emails constitute death threats is a definitional matter best left to the AFP, who—as far as I'm aware—never investigated them as such. Technically (though it may be of little consolation to the victims), they're probably merely death exhortations, or death wishes. Which is NOT to say the recipients should be expected to laugh them off as nothing but robust feedback! They're unequivocally horrible.

Nevertheless the question is whether there has ever been a campaign of death-threatening emails against Australian climate scientists, and the evidence—a measly handful of revolting emails per thousand scientist-years—says No, this is a defamatory libel against skeptics.

What you're doing is not materially different from attempting to rationalise the blood libel against the Jewish (you know, the former scientific consensus that matzoh balls were made of the blood of underage Christians) by putting the Son of Sam murders "under my nose" and demanding ad nauseam: is Berkowitz a Jewish name or not, Keyes?

Lame, in other words.

Isolated failures of moral decency, occasional breakdowns in the normal inhibition against graphically ugly conduct and speech, do not constitute an unrelenting, organised campaign, as alleged by certain hysterical and unscrupulous Aussie climate scientists, DO THEY?

"They're like climate change - they don't just go away because you shut your eyes and scream."

Who's ever said it was possible, necessary or desirable to make climate change go away?

At this point I have to ask, and please don't be offended by this: are you intellectually capable of arguing against positions I actually hold, Zibethicus? Or are strawman arguments the limit of your competence?

"Isolated failures of moral decency, occasional breakdowns in the normal inhibition against graphically ugly conduct and speech, do not constitute an unrelenting, organised campaign, as alleged by certain hysterical and unscrupulous Aussie climate scientists, DO THEY?"

The same way we're still waiting for your confirmation that Maxine Cooper actually supports Coochey's version of the 'roo culling' conversation, AREN'T WE?

After all, that's the position that you "/actually hold/", ISN'T IT?

You just haven't offered any /proof/ to support it, as I have already pointed out repeatedly. So I /am/ "arguing against positions [you] actually hold", while all /you/ seem "intellectually capable" of doing is hurling stupid, empty abuse over your shoulder as you run off again with the goalposts.

Now, in view of David Benson's aversion to argumentative Australians (although I don't see how they're worse than argumentative Americans) you're not going to post again until you've got some of the actual /proof/ you've been asked for over and over again, AREN'T YOU?

Because you /do/ have that 'proof', DON'T YOU?

*

I agree with Benson, anyway - this is getting very boring and I have work to do. Your vacuous bombast and empty, self-contradictory rhetoric is simply wasting everybody's time, except your own, which you seem to have a lot of to spare. Not me...

Hey, I know the feeling. I'm still waiting for the Jewish community to prove it isn't waging a secret campaign to harvest my kids' haemoglobin. The resounding lack of evidence either way is damning, I say—damning!

I'm kidding, of course. I'm just making fun of your pre-scientific, folk notions of how the burden of evidence works. Being scientifically-illiterate, you really are making it too easy though, Zed. ;-)

"The astute hopper will notice your embarrassingly repetitious misuse of the technical term proof, which—as everybunny knows—requires four male witnesses."

Fancy that. Coochey claims that Maxine Cooper supports her story, Brad Keyes offers absolutely no evidence that Cooper ever did support Coochey. Just what I would call "embarrassingly repetitious" - that is, your own failure to furnish anything in support of your own claim.

You /should/ be embarrassed.

"LOL... Seriously though... Better trolls, please."

I agree. Is this /really/ the best you can do, or are you having an exceptionally bad day even by denier's 'standards'?

I mean, making claims you can't back up is nothing new for a denier, but /failing/ to back it up so loudly and so often is really pretty embarrassing...for you...

And, just to wrap this up, the original document with which you took issue(http://www.readfearn.com/2012/05/hate-campaign-against-climate-scientists-has-not-be-debunked/), describing it as "apologetics for the blood libel against Antipodean skeptics", links to the following, which is a reproduction of the original Canberra Times report:

More than 30 researchers across Australia ranging from ecologists and environmental policy experts to meteorologists and atmospheric physicists told The Canberra Times they are receiving a stream of abusive emails threatening violence, sexual assault, public smear campaigns and attacks on family members.

I have already shown you where the ABC Media Watch reproduced just some of this hate mail.

You have not challenged its authenticity, except to rather desperately try to mischaracterise them as "merely death exhortations, or death wishes." (Oh, well - that's /different/, then...)

In other words, at enormous and tedious and redundant length, you have shown us all that the Readfern article is actually quite correct - just as it says, the ANU FOI request was limited in its scope and its duration, and "[a]t the same time, other climate scientists at other institutions had been receiving abusive messages and emails."

Thank you for confirming, at perhaps excessive length, that Graham Readfern is a source that can be trusted in this matter. Since we are all well aware that climate scientists in Australia and elsewhere are being subjected to an exceptionally vicious and unscrupulous campaign of vilification and abuse, you hardly needed to go to all that trouble, even if your intention was to set yourself up as a standard for useful comparison.

@- Brad KeyesAs your favoured hypothesis is that AGW is inconsequential, or will have no significant net negative effects, perhaps you could reveal which evidence and inference chain has caused you to hold that opinion.

I would add that I do not expect a cogent reply to this question as the historical record shows that the citing of actual data, information and evidence is conspicuous by its absence in the vast majority of your posts.

So let me help, perhaps you think that the changes already seen and ongoing in sea level, weather patterns, growing seasons and land ice mass balance will be well within human societies ability to respond with adaptation. Personally I think this would require a cherry-picked line of evidence on the severity of climate change and a rose-tinted view of how robust modern technological civilisation actually is.

But perhaps you can provide evidence that does support this inferred hypothesis?

"'No, and I think you'll agree with me here: it's a science and we ought to hold it to exactly the same standards as any other.'

You really don't 'get' science.

There are no standards and there are no rules, except possibly for the journals, and the journal publications do not define science - they just report some of it. In fact, there is no real definition of science..."

you are, I take it, denying the existence of the scientific method (the most usual and obvious candidate for "real definition of science").

If, therefore, you assert "science says" such-and-such is going to happen, or such-and-such a scientist "disagrees with" or "denies science," you are, I take it, not asserting anything in particular.

The revelation that such assertions have been meaningless the whole time—for 25 years now, presumably?—will surely be of great reassurance to the millions of citizens naïve enough to have lost sleep every time "science" said they were in danger from global warming.

One final thing that's been puzzling me: if science has no rules or standards or criteria or definition, why didn't this ever dawn on Richard Feynman? How did you discover a truth—the truth of scientific nihilism—which managed to elude some, dare I say all?, of the great scientific minds of the last couple of centuries? In any case, congratulations on this achievement.

> Whether those offensive and disturbing emails constitute death threats is a definitional matter best left to the AFP [...]

There is the "is a definitional matter" trick, a trick I call parsomatic:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/Parsomatics

There is the "best left to the AFP" trick, which is called handwaving:

> [T]his is essentially a legal matter. Turn it over to lawyers.

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/692140904

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

***

Speaking of which, why do you thing the AFP would have any authority on what constitutes a death threat?

Auditors oftentimes starts their parsomatic mode by citing thy Wiki:

> A death threat is a threat, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or groups of people. These threats are usually designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behavior, thus a death threat is a form of coercion. For example, a death threat could be used to dissuade a public figure from pursuing a criminal investigation or an advocacy campaign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_threat

Don't you think the example cited by Zibethicus applies?

If not, there are other examples we could look in the links provided over there:

Can we take that as your admission that Readfern and I are correct, and that you have /no/ confirmation of Coochey's claim (as cited by you) that Maxine Cooper witnessed his 'harmless' conversation?

I thought so.

This conversation might have been less 'boring' if you'd simply admitted in the first place that you had no idea whatsoever of what you were talking about. But even though it took a long time to take you through it to that point, I don't think it was /wasted/ time exactly.

You are, after all, now about as thoroughly self-exposed as it is possible for a person to be - and I don't just mean as a bore.

Whereas, thanks mainly to you, Readfern is looking better than ever. Thanks for all your efforts on his behalf...

"Speaking of which, why do you thing the AFP would have any authority on what constitutes a death threat?"

Well, because they're the police. Which gives them more "authority," which is to say knowledge, than me or (AFAIK) you when it comes to whether or not a given alleged act is prima facie criminal and worth investigating.

"Don't you think the example cited by Zibethicus applies?"

Certainly he cited a couple which, if I received them, I would instinctively call death threats. Any reticence about the terminology comes solely from an awareness that there's a fairly bright line separating horrible speech from death threats, but that I don't know where that line is, having no legal or law-enforcement background. Feel free to edify me if you can.

"Who owns the Australian, Brad?"

I couldn't tell you. Anyway, it's a strange question, particularly since (unless I'm mistaken) I haven't cited said newspaper at any point!

I personally get my news from the SMH, which is (or was until this year) Fairfax-owned. That's the extent of my bar trivia, I'm afraid.

"Don't you think that determining what Feynman thinks of science might be best left to philosophers and historians of science, as you say yourself when comes the time to define death threats?"

1. I am a philosopher. I forget that other people often aren't.

2. No. He told undergraduate science students what he thought of science. This is not exactly secret-society stuff. Nor should it be. Anyone presuming to comment usefully on the "Climate Wars" (ugh), or even spectate intelligently, needs to know the difference between science and non-science, a matter of which Feynman is rightly considered one of the best expositors.

Denalists world-around were shocked today when Brad Keyes, using Rabett Run as his self-elected platform, first lambasted Graham Readfern for what Keyes called his "apologetics for the blood libel against Antipodean skeptics" and then, in a stunning reversal, admitted that Readfern's facts were substantially correct.

When confronted with evidence of death threats being made against Australian climate scientists, as presented on the ABC website Media Watch, Keyes did not challenge their authenticity, instead at first repeatedly ignoring them, and then trivialising them as "merely death exhortations, or death wishes."

As Readfern was claiming that such threats had been made, Keyes' final position appeared to be in support of Readfern.

When asked why he had spent so much time attempting to divert attention from the death threats to a conversation which John Coochey claims to have had with Maxine Cooper (which Keyes at no time presented any evidence to confirm the existence of), Keyes explained that he was 'preparing the ground for a backflip', and he needed all the hot air to 'cushion the impact'.

Keyes is understood to now be a leading for the Golden Gabble Award to be presented by Christopher Monckton at the next Heartland Institute Meeting. Industry sources claim that he will be entered in the Shameless Backflip and Industrial-strength Time-Wasting categories.

Nevertheless the question is, and has only ever been, whether there was a campaign of death-threatening emails against Australian climate scientists, and the evidence—a measly handful of revolting emails per thousand scientist-years—says "No, that's just a defamatory libel against the skeptical community as a whole."

Remember, Son of Sam doesn't justify the Protocols. Get the difference?

> Certainly [Zibethicus] cited a couple which, if I received them, I would instinctively call death threats.

This admission might have been sufficient to Zibethicus. I have no reason to believe that he was asking your legal opinion on the concept of "death threat". Handwaving to the AFP and playing definition games are moot at best.

You have to admit that the handwaving and the definition game do seem a bit tricksy, more so now if we believe you when you say that you are philosopher.

Not unlike ninjas, philosophers have authority, nay, knowledge of these tricksy tricks.

***

My question about **The Australian** was inspired by your smiley:

> The email that fictionalised this banal exchange into something alarming was written by Will Steffen, an alarmist. :-)

1. I didn't mean to imply that the alarming fictionalisation of the dinner party was unreliable because its author, Will Steffen, is an alarmist—I had already established that it was unreliable, and then threw in a little dig at Steffen's credibility in light of the bollocks he'd uttered. So there was no ad hominem involved—which, if you remember your propositional Tao, is a kind of fallacy in which the speaker is supposed to discredit the speech, not the other way round!

2. your trivial pursuit about Rupert Murdoch was therefore an uncalled-for ad hominem and genetic fallacy... which was irrelevant to boot, since I hadn't relied on anything printed in The Australian—I only quoted John Coochey's words as he'd typed them on Graham Redfearn's own blog

3. what you and Zibethicus persist in ignoring is that the question is, and has always been, whether or not there was a campaign of death-threatening emails against Australian climate scientists, and the evidence—a measly handful of revolting emails per thousand scientist-years—says, "No, that's just a defamatory libel against the skeptical community as a whole."

In no way was I using the fact that Rupert Murdoch owned **The Australian** as an argument. As you said elsewhere, it was just an assertion. Assertions can't be used as arguments, right? If you prefer, I could say that mentioning **The Australian**'s owner was "just a little dig" at the Australian's credibility and all that jazz.

I'm afraid these two lines of defense might sound tricksy, though.

As far as I'm concerned, this fact could deserve due diligence whether or not you use any word taken from the Australian, Brad. Thinking otherwise would commit the genetic fallacy, by the way. And you do seem to think otherwise.

***

Your point 3 does seem to rest on the word "campaign". For I believe you would prima facie believe that we have witnessed :

So I believe this depends upon what we mean by "campaign".

Whom should we consult as an authority on such matter, Brad?

All this for the word "campaign", Brad? I agree it might have been suboptimal. As the Auditor says:

> Maybe it's just a vocabulary thing:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/31268600509

Or perhaps not, since we should soon pay due diligence to the moral apparatus you wish to inject in a discussion about What is science?

***

You have been advised to keep your own authority out of the conversation, Brad. It will be tough now to play dumb, perhaps the only strategy left for you. OTOH, we can be grateful for all these concerns you do need to provide again and again.

Brad,How many death threats must a scientist receive before it is considered a "campaign". I would think one should suffice. I know of no similar flow of death threats in the opposite direction. The scientists have been pretty passive.

"You have been advised to keep your own authority out of the conversation, Brad."

When? I must have forgotten who gave such advice; or perhaps it got lost in some ninja's artsy periphrasis?

Nonetheless, I would have had no occasion to mention my "authority" (actually, mere knowledge / competence) had an interlocutor not made the false assumption that I shared his lack of "authority." (Maybe we should leave this to the philosophers, said a warrior-poet; so I was forced to correct him.)

"It will be tough now to play dumb, perhaps the only strategy left for you."

Such dissimulation is difficult for me at the best of times, for try as I might, I always revert to my true nature. Therefore it is not even in my strategic repertoire. In fact, I have long been in the habit of secreting but a single trick up my sleeve: honesty.

"OTOH, we can be grateful for all these concerns you do need to provide again and again."

It would be more... optimal... if I could provide them just once, though, and be assured that they were comprehended and actioned, no?

Finally, I wish to make a complaint!

An incident occurred during an exchange about climate warming. An individual—who had earlier become frustrated with the science being presented by myself—suddenly boasted that he was a professional killer and brandished what he claimed was a ninja licence! The individual is understood to have left voluntarily and silently.

Whether this incident would be technically called a "death-threat" or simply a relentless, organised campaign to sexually harass me, my workmates and extended family is, to me at least, academic!

All of Brad's maze of twisty little passages can be cut through by asking "so what?" So what if Phil J. didn't give Warwick H. some data... so what if Phil J. expressed private relief that John D. was dead ... so what? Does this change at all our understanding of climate? No. And that's science. Take away any one result or person and there are other results or people telling us substantially the same thing.

In the end, the problem with trying to reason with Bradley is not that he is so hard to get through--it is that even if you do get through, he has nothing to offer. No wit, no understanding, no insight, no humor. He is a pathetic parasite.

"Brad, So you don't understand the difference between a warning and a death threat. Really, Brad? Are you really that dim?

Congratulations. That's the stupidest thing I've read so far on the Intertubes this year."

Shorter Brad (TM to whomever):

It's not a 'campaign' because I say it's not a 'campaign'.

They're not 'death threats' because I say they're not 'death threats'.

*

For the rest of it, Keyes has discovered - at truly gargantuan length and volume - that Readfern is correct in stating that Australian climate scientists have been receiving death threats - or 'death exhortations', which are different things, you understand.

Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on him. After all, he /is/ a 'philosopher'...

At the rate which he has been noisily discovering phenomena which are common knowledge to everyone else, perhaps with a few more years of diligent effort he'll manage to stumble upon the existence of daylight, or even perhaps the wheel.

Can his felicitous arrival upon the shores of climate science be too many decades behind these revelations?

So Eli the ever patient Bunny is gonna make everyone a deal. If no one replies to Brad for 24 hours, Eli will wipe the last load of Brad's comments out and throw them down the Rabett hole. Good for all posts. You can toy with him there.

Remember you have to leave it alone. OTOH if Brad sock-puppets to stop this Eli will wipe ALL of Brad's comments out.

Years ago, Pielke Jr ran a blog. Prometheus. It was supposed to be a high quality venue, related to his CIRES work, yada yada etc.

Eli Rabbit used to comment there.

One day, as can happen, someone, or Pielke Jr ticked off Eli Rabbet with a nonchalant toss toward the precautionary principle, or by a stubborn refusal to accept damning circumstantial evidence (that CO2 will kill the world). After becoming suitably worked up, Eli Rabbit gave an example of a bloody murder scene to illustrate his case.

Only, the victim's name in his example, coincidentally, happened to be the same as Peilke Jr's real-life offspring.

Taking mortal offense, Pielke Jr shut down the thread. He declared that Eli had issued vieled death threats against his family members. IIANM, Pielke blew Eli Rabett's anonymity cover at this point. Who knows.

The point is, Eli Rabett is well familiar with misinterpretations of material into 'death threats', or some form of 'threats', that take place from instincts of self-protection, cynical exploitation, discrediting and smearing one's opponents, and similar reasons. He ought to know from personal experience.

Ah yes, Roger was doing his usual high maintenance fit, so Eli told him this story.

One day Eli and Dano were walking down the railroad tracks, and they saw a hand. That looks like Diane's (Eli does forget which name he used, but as you shall see, nevermind) hand said Eli, why yes it does said Dano.

Then they went a bit further, and they saw a leg. That looks like Diane's leg said Eli, why yes it does said Dano.

As they went down the tracks they saw a body. For sure, that looks like Diane's body said Eli, why yes it does said Dano.

Until finally they came upon a head. That is Diane's head said Eli, why yes it is said Dano adding, Diane pull yourself together.

At the end of the story Eli pointed out that Roger too would do well to pull himself together.

Of course, at the time he used the opportunity to throw another fit. High maintenance that boy.

Did not reply the bradthing for a multitude of diurnal periods.Now, why? I heeded advise from a number of participants here. Who, to my surprise (somewhat), never took even the tiniest shred of their own advisories. Resulting in two threads that imho should've gone down the ahole during the Bunny Days, of the year 2013 to be clear, already.

I feel kinda raped by this bradthing. And by those telling me to keep quiet while being raped and cheering the thing meantime. The good news is there is now ample space in my rabett hole.

/cRR

Ps, for parabels resembling death threats better use numbers, like six digits, instead of christian names.

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Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett, a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny who finally handed in the keys and retired from his wanna be research university. The students continue to be naive but great people and the administrators continue to vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional without Eli's help. Eli notices from recent political developments that this behavior is not limited to administrators. His colleagues retain their curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves. Prof. Rabett is thankful that they, or at least some of them occasionally heeded his pointing out the implications of the various enthusiasms that rattle around the department and school. Ms. Rabett is thankful that Prof. Rabett occasionally heeds her pointing out that he is nuts.